October of course sees the official arrival of Apple Day in the UK, and an opportunity for harvest weary smallholders to invite friends round to help out under the guise of having a party!

Although in truth our apple crop had been arriving progressively in the kitchen since the start of August.

And The Secret Acre is certainly no stranger to hosting our own Apple Day events, in our long standing quest to make cider, which fortunately seems to be getting better with time at least.

Many hands make light work washing and quartering the apples.

So once again this October, friends rallied round in the orchard to help us make pasteurised apple juice and set the next batch of cider fermenting.

This year our friend Derek even volunteered to film the event, an epic production which we will share shortly.

But in the meantime here are a few photographs from this year’s Apple Day.

Scratting the apples to pulp is a dangerous business best left to children, while the parents safely press the juice!

Finally, there is always a bit of tension about how much of the apple juice is pasteurised to drink, and how much goes to making cider.